[HOE] A posse wet behind the ears takes on the butcher of Baton Rouge

[Matt Crawford <matt@severian.chi.il.us>]

After a certain point, this message will be for Marshals only.  I'll
mark it clearly.

A week ago, my posse finally finished their first adventure.  It took
six sessions, although that included some fillips and embellishments
which I added to (a) work in a character who missed the first session
and (b) give them ways to recover from their initial failures.

Backgound first.  Some of this I've mentioned before.  I did a little D&D
as a college freshman a loong time ago, with a group that really broke
all the molds, but I set it aside.  Later I played a system which my
friend Barry Nakazono made up, and which he turned into Leading Edge
Games.  That was it for role-playing.  I preferred board games and space
& naval miniatures for the most part.  (I'm still mainly a board gamer.)
But now I find myself Marshalling HOE.  Here's how.

One of the players, whom I'll call Dan (because everyone does) has been
the GM/DM/Judge/Marshal of pretty near every RPG you ever heard of for
maybe 20 years for his gang of friends, most of whom went to high school
together.  (Some have been out of the area for years and then back.  I'm
from way out of the area but now "married into" that crowd.)  He started
'em on Deadlands just a year or so ago and I joined in then on a lark.
Toward the end of last year he somehow talked me into running HOE.  I
think he was eager to be on the other side of the screen for a change!

One thing I insisted on was a smaller group than plays Deadlands.  He
typically gets 9 to 12 players at a time!  I kid you not.  I've kept this
HOE posse down to six players and you can imagine the difference.

So, fresh off the starting block, the characters were:

Gurdy "Kaibosh" Lee, martial artist and contortionist, played by Marshal
Dan.  Loves to seize the pearl of death and toss it back.

Dwain Amos, schismatic doomsayer, worker on a Texas plantation before
the last war.

Buffy & Muffy Pendleton, identical twin sykers.  Buffy went off to
Faraway while Muffy minded the family business on Oregon.

Sterling, Templar.  With incredible strength and a relic sword he's
master of the sweep, but not much use with a gun.

Saubin, jackal-headed, carrion-eating Hekant who yearns to lead Amarna
back to worship of the "true gods".  (At times he considers himself one.)
he's not strong or quick, so he travels with his faithful sidekick ...

Archie, one-armed, streetwise and thick skinned.  Handy with a gun
(until it's time to reload).


The first five of these were commissioned to drive small locked boxes
down the mighty Mississippi in Muffy's Ford pickup for the River
Watch.  On the way to their last stop, they met with an adventure.
Saubin and Archie were checking out reports of unnatural happenings
around New Orleans (well, duh!) and met with the same adventure.
=================================================================
MARSHALS ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT    --    THERE ARE SPOILERS AHEAD
=================================================================










Believe me, your Marshal will KNOW if you have read forbidden texts
===================================================================

The play is Hell or High Water.  In act I, the pickup conveniently
takes a bad pothole near Nouveau Baton Rouge.  Enter Luke Kirby,
pursued by a pack of hungry mutrias.  The new Marshal learns not to
let the combat start at long range when the villains have only teeth
and claws.  Exeunt, the few surviving mutrias.

The gator attack with cannon support did the right thing, although it
was rather difficult to get the posse to part with their precious
pickup truck and go boating with Luke.  Understandable, though.

In act II, the posse helps defend the town, which they do with only
one character heavily wounded, and bargains truck repairs and food for
destruction of the gators.  They come away with the mistaken notion
that Tinsdale is a Junker who can rig up automated weapons systems on
the truck for them.

Here's a purple-prose write-up of that session, in which Muffy,
with night terrors and a deathwish, assaults the Delta Queen alone.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------
|We rejoin our heroes after they helped the happy town of Nouveau
|Baton Rouge fend off a raid by dozens of "The Gators" -- a band of
|scruffy and poorly equipped scavengers-by-force who had been
|displaced from their former area of operations by superior force.
|
|Flush with success, and with the only sanguinary sacrifice bravely
|borne by their noble knight, the Woody Wridge gang vowed to take the
|fight to the enemy and wipe the scurvy pirates from the mighty river
|forever!
|
|The hurrahs of the grateful community had scarcely ceased to resound
|when terror struck from a different source.  A gate guard was
|snatched from his post, only a single shot from his rifle alerting
|the town to trouble.  En route to investigate, the puissant posse
|perceived another peril -- the scrapyard was without a scrap of
|light.  After a chase in dark rooms, it developed that resourceful
|young recycler Luke Kirby had disconnected the electricity to the
|building when he heard footsteps.  He thought one of the Gators had
|slipped past the defenders on the ramparts, but what was found was
|the lifeless husk of Henry Johnson, his fellow recycler who had been
|missing for some days.
|
|Or was it?  As we know, with "all dead" there's only one thing to do:
|go through his pockets for loose change.  But Henry was wearing no
|pockets and was only MOSTLY dead.  And a little bit UNdead is all the
|difference.  When the well-beloved Doctor Janice Rawls had finished
|treating the day's many wounded, the presumed corpse took her diving.
|Her final scream seems to have been heard only by a sleepless syker
|whose whereabouts, luckily, could be accounted for.
|
|Undeterred, town and travellers joined forces to scout for the Delta
|Queen, floating garrison of the grim Gators.  The once stately lady
|of the river was spotted, after many hours of search, snagged by the
|old CSS Kidd under the crumbling Interstate-10 bridge.
|
|Working quickly to take advantage of the Queen's distress, the plucky
|posse prepared a plan as powerful as the plastique provided by ace
|engineer Rupert Tinsdale.  Striking by night, mad Muffy Pendleton
|masqueraded as an escaped Gator prisoner to plant the dreadful
|demolition device amid the pirates' black powder.  But what to her
|wondering eyes did appear, but a horde of bloated zombies already
|attacking her prey!
|
|Too much mayhem is never enough, so Muffy carried out her mission.
|Quickly working her way up to the boiler deck she came face to face
|with a reeking zombie which had lost its quarry.  Her matched
|snub-nosed .38's spoke with one voice as she sent the foul creation
|to an overdue apres-vie.
|
|In the calm seconds that followed, Muffy zeroed in like a
|pyromaniacal bloodhound on the cached casks of powdered potential.
|Tensely reciting to herself kindly Mr. Tinsdale's instructions on the
|operation of the bomb she bore, she carried them out letter-perfect
|and planted it among the kegs.  Curfew would ring tonight!
|
|In a flash she vaulted to the hurricane deck and sent a telepathic
|signal to her twin who waited on the bridge above!  Her companions
|did not fail her and down came a stout cable which she clutched with
|all her might.  Up, up she was lifted, in agonizing slowness.  The
|seconds were ticking on the bomb's timer as the electric winch turned
|its slow revolutions.  Like a harrowed prom date the old doubts of
|her youth had come back to haunt her -- did she really spend too much
|time in the powder room?
|
|At last, the edge of the bridge was in reach!  Her faithful friends
|pulled her over the parapet.  They were scrambling together over the
|brittle bridge when the fireworks show started.  The bridge stopped
|them from seeing it, and from feeling it, mostly.  Doomsayer Dwain,
|holding one end of the electric winch, lost his footing and was
|impressed with the gravity of the situation.
|
|These new bishops of boom were the toast of the town.  But come
|sunup, there was another job of work to do.  The evil master of the
|bloated zombie legion had to be found and stopped.
+--------------------------------------------------------------------

Muffy had two lucky rolls against the bloat (guts and shootin) and
made essentially a beeline for one of the powder stashes.  The next
installment did not go so well.  The Hekant and his sidekick hadn't
made it to the first session, so I worked in them in at this point by
having them visit Mama Tibutu and learn of a couple of toe-tagged
bloats found all the way down there.  She gave them some second-rate
charms against undead (no protection, but surefire healing) and they
deduced the hospital they had to visit.  A friend of Mama's dropped
them off just before the bulk of the posse showed up.  Oh, and this
time the Templar was absent -- staying behind in town to fill in for
the abducted Doc Rawls.  The next portion of the chronicle is written
by the player of the schismatic doomsayer.  His mode of being saved
from the bloats in the river was hilarious!

+--------------------------------------------------------------------
|Dwain here,
|    Gravity hurts. Obviously I can't compete with Matt's superfluous writing
|capabilities, yet another strong point of his, but here is the gist of it.
|The next day the cocky posse headed out (hey why wouldn't we be cocky?
|Nothing really touched us on the boat operation.). We followed a clue that
|was on a toe-tag, the letters BRMH. we pulled out some old maps of Baton
|Rouge and we discovered Baton Rouge Municipal Hospital (BRMH) Luke drove us
|out there. As we headed towards our pivotal destination, we were attacked by
|"Bloats". They grabbed the bottom of the boat and started rocking it. I fell
|right in the water and everyone still aboard didn't have near enough
|strength to save me from being pulled into the deep, dark, depths of the
|sea. To buy myself some time, I cast a nice little miracle on myself giving
|my body the capability to stretch for 5 yards, unforunately my clothes DON'T
|stretch along with the miracle. Eventually, Kaibosh managed to pull me out.
|Unfortunately I went right over the boat. They still managed to drag me in
|though.
|    Finally, BRMH was within our grasp when we almost got into a shootout
|with an odd Jackal-headed man and another one-armed man (Russ and company).
|Kaibosh almost got into a shootout but Saubin managed to convince him
|that he was but a man attempting to solve the mystery of the Bloats as well.
|    Under protest we all entered the flooded hospital together. We discovered
|a video which depicted a doctor cutting himself open in an attempt to
|re-animate himself, it was pretty sick.
|    We left Luke behind and explored. We found "Doctor DeLacroix" eventually
|with about 10 Bloats accompanying him.
|    We all promptly wet ourselves and ran like little women. Both Saubin and
|Kaibosh almost bit the big one but, hey, at least they trust each other now,
|sort of.
|    During the escape we were almost not let go by a couple of Bloats who
|grabbed on to our boat. The brave Doomsayer, Dwain (hehehe) managed to find
|the courage and save the party with a nice MIRV.
|    Now we await the ribbing of the Templar.
+--------------------------------------------------------------------

That's right, they all failed guts checks.  The Deadlands Marshal had,
amazingly, put ZERO points into his Martial Artist's guts.  Well, he
was never a stickler for guts checks in his game.  (He is now!)

So there they are, limping back to town in their boats, the Hekant
critically wounded to the guts (and unaware of the power of Mama
Tibutu's charm).

+--------------------------------------------------------------------
|Our intrepid heroes, pale as ghosts and visibly shaken from their first
|encounter with the dread Doctor Delacroix and his undead underlings,
|were motoring away from the hospital of horror.  The jackal-jawed
|doomsayer clutched at his torn torso and tried to push his insides back
|in.  His faithful companion looked on and wrung his hand in concern.
|
|"Boss, can I get you something?  An aspirin?  Some road kill?"
|
|"Must ... summon ... glow.  Reassemble ... atomic ... structure..."
|
|His hands began to glow with a feeble actinic light as he
|pressed them against his wounds.
|
|"Not enough ... Farewell, Archie ... Make my report to the groun...
|What?!?!?"
|
|The flensed flesh was glowing itself as its cells knitted themselves
|back into place!  A "Yowp" escaped Saubin's mouth as he grasped
|at his sternum.  "Cold."  Archie's hand stole toward his own chest
|as he and Saubin silently mouthed the same two words at each other
|and turned their eyes far downriver.
|
|= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
|
|The surprise and shock must have affected both Saubin's and Archie's
|memory, so they rested up for a few days in Red Stick while the
|rest of the puissant posse, this time including their doughty
|Templar, planned and carried out a second assault on the mad medico
|and his malodorous minions.
+--------------------------------------------------------------------

So.  They are determined to try again.  Well, I can't let them find
Delacroix unprepared!  I let them do improvin' at a somewhat accelerated
rate, and had the badguys station two underwater to push away the boats
when they landed (they never tied 'em up, just pulled them up onto the
floor), barricade the stairs with those hospital bedframes, wedge the
elevator doors shut on the first floor, and hide a few of themselves in
the nearest examination room to spring out and attack when they pounded
on the stairway door.  A rope was dangling in one elevator shaft for
travel between the sunken morgue level and the OR level.

Naturally, this time the posse tied their boats securely -- and had
townfolk standing by at the four corners with extras -- and avoided the
stairs completely.  They also spotted the rope in the elevator shaft and
cut it.  There goes my surprise attack from the rear!

Next installment written by the player of the (illiterate) martial
artist...
+--------------------------------------------------------------------
|From the journal of Kaibosh "Gurdy" Lee as told to Buffy Pendelton:
|Second assault on BRMH:
|
|I am becoming more and more suspicious of our new "friend" the doomsayer and
|our old "friend" the Templar.  No one else has seemed to notice that we
|never see the two of them together.  It makes me wonder.  If glasses are
|good enough of a disguise to conceal the fact that Clark Kent is really
|Superman in the old magazines that I found, how good would a hollowed out
|dog's head and a Templar's tabard be to throw us off the track. Did not the
|Templar persona tell me on more than one occasion that he is a master of
|disguise?  They also both "coincidentally" have the same sort of healing
|power.  What is THAT about!  Perhaps I should try to "accidentally" knock
|that fake jackal head off next time.  I must be cautious.  While in Templar
|(superman) form, he is a deadly opponent!
|
|Back to the matter at hand.  After our Dunkirk at the hospital, we fell back
|to Nouveau Baton Rouge to regroup and re-evaluate.  We explored our feelings
|about the fear that still resided like a coiled serpent in our bowels.  We
|were able to grasp the beast and pull it out.  We had faced the dark terrors
|that were Dr. Delacroix and his minions and lived to tell the tale.  Our
|pride ached for revenge!  We loaded up with icypropy alcohol and loaded back
|up into the boats.  The sheriff declined our offer to join us in avenging
|the deaths of her townsfolk, but did supply us with 4 boats so that we could
|have various pick-up points if we needed to make another cautious retreat.
|While wary, the thrill of the coming battle was upon us all.
|
|We docked in the same spot.  The Mad Doctor would not be expecting that.  A
|quick inspection of the doorway to the stairs showed that route was blocked.
|Perhaps he had been expecting that after all.  However, we were not to be
|deterred.  A quick demonstration of the Slithering Eel, and we had two ropes
|attached to the next floor.  I allowed the Templar to take point while I
|strategically fell back into an overwatch position.  We had to help Dwain up
|with a complicated rope and pulley system, but the two girls did okay on
|their own.  We maintained one rope for retreat and selected a strong piece
|of rebar for a second route of escape.  Dwain used the opponent-free
|opportunity to place his DoomStones in strategic areas.
|
|I remained near the rope to keep our escape route clear while the others
|began probing the Doctor's defenses.  We found a rope leading into the
|elevator shaft.  Sterling cut the rope and continued a stealthy search.
|Upon entering the scrub room once again, he was spotted by bloats.  He
|calmly stepped out and apprised us of the situation.  The man must have ice
|water in his veins.  Unfortunately, while he was spotting the bloats, they
|were spotting him.  Sterling, Dwain, Muffy and Buffy continued into the next
|room while I watched the lobby area.  Sure enough, the two doors to the
|scrub room opened up and the undead started to poor out in hordes.  I called
|for back-up (as it is proper procedure), but my compatriots were otherwise
|engaged.  I could not shoot them all!  
|
|As the enemy belched forth, I grasped at the only option that I was
|available to me.  I took up a better defensive position behind the old
|nurses station and requested that Dwain detonate the Doom Stone designated
|#5.  A tremendous explosion ripped through the hospital creating havoc
|amongst the forces of the dead.  Many of these bloated monstrosities were
|destroyed, but even us good guys did not escape unscathed.  I took a wound
|from the blast and I believe Dwain himself was shaken up a little bit.  I
|leapt up with my rifle ready to do some damage to these putrid agents of
|evil.  I could have taken a shot, but I decided to let one of them get close
|enough to hit me before firing.  Was it fear that stayed my hand or the
|knowledge that a prefer close fighting to shooting from a distance?  One
|shall never know.
|
|The sounds of a major battle were raging near the operating room, but I had
|my hands full with my own dripping enemy.  I was finally able to stand up to
|these monstrosities and began slinging lead.  I shot the one right on me in
|the arm.  As I was preparing a head shot, Dwain emerged and did that weird
|"MERV" thing he does.  This cleared the lobby of foes.
|
|The sounds of battle were slacking off near the operating room but soon
|picked up again.  My blood was up!  If I could come into the operating room
|from the back way, perhaps I could get my revenge on the Doc.  I burst into
|the scrub room on my way to the battle and saw the vile, malodorous villain
|trying to make his escape.  I charged after him and let fly with a 10 foot
|punch loaded with my best venom.  Unfortunately, just as the Charged CHI
|energy was leaving my body on its deadly path to its intended target, a
|spasm from my wounded arm caused me to wince and miss my target.  The Doc
|put in his own form of giddyyap as he saw that I was bearing down on him and
|bringing hell with me.  He beelined for the elevator shaft.  I hollered for
|Muffy or Buffy to stop him.  They did what they could, but it was not
|enough.  Dwain made a valiant effort to get his last Dirt Clod of Doom in
|the shaft with him (at the risk of his own life).  He blew up the shaft all
|right, but we are not sure if he got the doctor.  No one wanted to chase the
|doctor into the water to see.
|
|We began mop up operations.  My goal at this stage was to make sure the
|bodies the doctor had been using would not be reused.  I began methodically
|chopping off heads of the dead.  When I found the big pile in the room where
|the other battle took place, I saw that most of my work was already done for
|me.  Dwain rounded up and burned every toe tag he could find.
|
|The carnage we had just lived through was not enough for Sterling.  Covered
|in the rancid goo that was our recent enemies, he continued to search for
|trouble.  He found it!  On the first floor, we found three more bloats that
|needed to be destroyed.  The Templar waded in.  The glee of battle clearly
|stamped on his face.  Dwain and I rushed to watch Sterling do his deadly
|work and admire his prowess while the women watched the boat and covered our
|backs.  We arrived just in time to see our own private killing machine take
|a hard club to the noggin.  He must have been slowing down from the battle,
|for it was clear that the blow had rocked him some.  If it had not been for
|Dwain well timed "Hey, look out and don't forget to du...ouch, that had to
|hurt!" we may have had to scoop up Sterling's brains.
|
|Dwain and I rushed up to Sterling's back and tried to persuade him to back
|out of the room so that we could get some.  The mighty Templar stood dazed
|for several seconds before he was able to clear his mind enough to back
|away.  Dwain MERVed once more and I leapt into action to finish up what he
|could not.  Victory once again!
|
|We led our dazed companion back to the boat and returned to Nouveau Baton
|Rouge.  The truck is repaired and a new canopy has been added.  The question
|now is, where do we go from here.  I doubt the doctor is finished, but where
|do we look for him.  I suppose we could spend the next week or so searching
|all the hospital nearby for signs of this Medicare cheating fraud, but I do
|not feel we should make it our lives work.  We have done enough for this
|town.  After a week or so with no sign of the doctor, I think we should move
|on.
+--------------------------------------------------------------------

Delacroix, his legions being cut down, saved a card up his sleeve and
then made a dash for that elevator shaft, unliving to fight another day.
The posse, in possession of the hospital did find the break room
(eventually).

=====================
I break the message here because the list server seems to limit
messages to 32kB.  The preparations and final battle will follow.